Conservationists say the project is the largest of its kind to ever take place. Goats arrived on the volcanic islands centuries ago. They were dropped of by fishing and whaling fleets as a means to ensure that fresh meat would be available to them for future trips. They bred widely and there ended up being possibly as many as a hundred thousand goats on Isabella, an Island which is the size of Rhode Island.
Mr. CAMPBELL: When they go into a feral state, they absolutely trash the place.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Meaning they can reduce a forest to a lawn in a few years, leaving vulnerable animals like the Galapagos tortoise struggling to survive. On the island of Pinta, goats decimated the vegetation, killing off most of the tortoise species there. Only one remained, Lonesome George, who's been moved.
The Isabella Project has developed three main lines of attack against the goats. Those specially trained dogs which round them up, hunters who wage aerial assaults, shooting the goats from helicopters, and finally what the conservationists confess is an underhanded weapon--a so-called Judas goat, which has a tracking device placed on it.
Mr. CAMPBELL: Goats typically are gregarious. They like being in herds, and so they'll go in search of each other. So we utilize their biology, that trait, actually against them.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Campbell has perfected that technique, using a kind of Mata Hari goat, a sterilized female with a hormone implant in her ear that puts her in a constant state of estrus, or heat.
Mr. CAMPBELL: So you've got this sterile, extremely horny goat that is extremely attractive to male goats and draws them in and is as close as we know at the moment to a perfect Judas goat.
Common Intruders Threaten Galapagos Species
I say this isn't cruel as long as they are eating the goats.